He was the first Tudor monarch, the king that Richard III conquered in the Battle of Bosworth Field.
So when Henry VII died in 1509 after suffering from gout and asthma, he was appropriately buried in Westminster Abbey.
But now is the remarkably lifelike image head that rested on his coffin during his funeral to be scanned by experts to try to find out exactly how it was made.
It is thought that it is the work of the Italian Renaissance sculptor Pietro Torrigiano, who came to England after leaving Florence in around 1509-1510.
Earlier research in the 1980s concluded that Torrigiano must have used a model from Henry's death mask to make it so lifelike.
Traditionally, a death mask was made of princes and rich figures with wax or plaster formed around the real face of the person after they died.
Documents have shown that they were being used to create funeral assets.
The head that is being investigated by Digital Heritage Firm Thinksee 3D is the last remaining element of Henry's Wood and Straw image, which was destroyed by water during the Second World War.
King Henry VII's funeral protection head is scanned to try to find out how it is so lifelike
Henry VII died in 1509 at the age of 52, after 24 years on the throne. He defeated Richard III during the Battle of Bosworth
Thinksee 3D use a method called Fotogrammetry to scan the image.
The method includes taking multiple photos around an object and then converting them into a 3D model by looking at surface functions and seeing how they change image to image.
The apparent shift in the position of a function enables the software through triangulation to determine the depth of that function.
By doing this for hundreds or even thousands of functions on an object, it is possible to define a complete surface in 3D.
The photos can then be 'painted' back on the surface to give the digital model a photographic appearance.
It is hoped that the investigation will make a stronger connection between the death mask of Henry VII and the work of Torrigiano.
The funeral security head is one of the most viewed objects in Westminster Abbey's Museum, the Queen Diamond Jubilee Galleries.
Henry's victory over Richard – whose remains were found under a leicester parking garage in 2012 – ended the wars of the roses in the Battle of Bosworth.
The funeral security head is one of the most viewed objects in Westminster Abbey's Museum, the Queen Diamond Jubilee Galleries (above)
The king and queen were the first princes to be buried in the abbey in a safe under the floor, instead of above the ground in a coffin. Upstairs: Their gril elements at Westminster Abbey
Colored view of the chapel and the grave of King Henry VII in Westminster Abbey, United Kingdom, 1922
He was the Tudor era that was brutally continued by his son, Henry VIII, before he ended with his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth I, when she died in 1601.
Henry VII's reign was a prosperous, which means that there was money to build the 'Wonder of the World' Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
There is the prince next to his wife, Elizabeth van York.
They were the first princes to be buried in the abbey in a safe under the floor, instead of above the ground in a coffin.
Torrigiano designed the Tomb Effigies that can still be seen above the ground. The gilt bronze figures are on top of a marble base.
Henry's funeral image was 6ft 1 long. Both his and his wife were saturated during the Blitz. Elizabeth's head – together with an arm and hand – also survived.
The nose of Henry's image head was lost centuries ago and then reconstructed during the preservation after the war.
The inscriptions for Henry on the grave read: 'Here is Henry the seventh of that name, formerly King of England, son of Edmund, Count of Richmond.
'He was founded on August 22 and immediately afterwards, on October 30, he was crowned in Westminster in the year of our Lord 1485.
“He then died on April 21 in the 53rd year of his age. He ruled for 23 years for eight months, less in one day. '
The grave is also scanned for the new project.
